As somewhat described in an earlier article, I’ve known since the year 2000 that the media failed to tell the true story of the Brooks Brothers riot. And the false entrenched narrative proves nearlyre impossible to alter.
Wikipedia counts as one of the obstacles to correcting the record. It treats false “trusted” media accounts as gospel, and its rules forbid the use of common sense in settling issues of truth. And even when sources Wikipedia has cited undermine its chosen narrative, a Wikipedia editor may act to protect the false narrative from disruption.
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A critique of Wikipedia’s treatment of the “Brooks Brothers riot”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
Completeness: D
At minimum, a fair account of the Brooks Brothers riot must acknowledge two competing narratives. Ideally, it will not favor the obviously false narrative over the true narrative. The introductory paragraph contains grains of truth and finishes by repeating unsubstantiated claims of violence and encourages the reader to commit the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy: “After demonstrations and acts of violence, local officials shut down the recount early.”
The “Background” section of the article does acknowledge Miami-Dade decided to limit its recount to the nearly 11,000 undervotes and move the recount to a smaller room on the 19th floor to speed up sorting out the undervotes from the other ballots. Unfortunately, the significance of those choices gets lost when the story lacks mention of 102.166 of the 2000 Florida Statutes, requiring the board at that stage to recount all ballots and stipulating that “Any manual recount shall be open to the public.” It’s fair to note that the media almost totally failed to mention those legal requirements while constructing its narrative about the Brooks Brothers riot, and Wikipedia’s editing rules forbid reaching conclusions not specifically spelled out in media reports. But the media failure was almost total. Not total. The Talk page has an editor rejecting John Podhoretz’s New York Post story mentioning the illegality of Miami-Dade’s actions as justification for including the text of the law in the article.
It’s impossible to understand the Brooks Brothers riot without the knowledge that Miami-Dade was skirting Florida election law on Nov. 22, 2000.
Competency: D
The article would count as superficially competent as to following Wikipedia policy if not for the resistance to the inclusion of information supporting the true narrative about the Brooks Brothers riot. The article cites Paul Gigot’s story in the Wall Street Journal. And Gigot did accurately invoke the law: “GOP lawyers also pointed out that the law--recall that quaint concept--required that any recount include all ballots.” That line should have opened the door to including the text of the relevant statute in the article. But it didn’t.
Scholarship: C
I cut Wikipedia a break on the scholarship because of its taboo on original research. On the other hand, I reached out to an editor asking for help in following Wikipedia policy to tell the true story about the riot and was asked to never again attempt contact. That could count as an attitude resistant to thorough scholarship. The weakness at Wikipedia apes the failure of the media at large: The best reporting on the Brooks Brothers riot took place during the first 24 hours or so. Later reporting settled in on a false narrative that dominated virtually all later reporting. A focus on day-of news reports and video from the event likely would have led to the truth.
Neutrality D
Wikipedia’s fundamental rules often make neutrality impossible, case in point. Wikipedia presents both sides as told by the skewed media lens. In truth, Miami-Dade was illegally restricting public access to the manual recount, the GOP protested, Miami-Dade relented in about an hour, and the county was put back to square one with a recount it could not possibly finish by the deadline. Those elements all occur in news reports of the event, but they’re buried by years of false narrative repetition.
Currency F
The key elements of the story were all there from the start. The resilience of the false narrative keeps the truth at bay. Editorial intransigence keeps Wikipedia from re-examining the early core facts and allowing the not “trusted” sources who got the story right to have the true narrative placed alongside the false narrative for fair comparison.
Simplicity: D
Simplicity here counts as the enemy of the truth, in that vague statements about the event, such as “the recount” when there was more than one recount method in Miami-Dade, end up failing to communicate accurately. On the other hand, the suppressed true narrative about the riot counts as a classic example of applying Ockham’s razor. The shaky traditional narrative needs things like Roger Stone machinations to power its explanations. The suppressed narrative explains everything simply, albeit it requires explaining how the third day of Miami-Dade’s recount differed from the first two days in terms of the applicable law.